Career How bad can Man Utd get? (‘austerity’ + ‘asset stripping’!)

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

An ‘Austerity’ + ‘Asset Stripping’ Save!

Have you ever turned these two narratives “on”? … In a league with too much money, what happens when Man Utd must cut costs + sell assets just to survive?

 
First Media Announcements: 
It does not look good. Costs must be cut + rumours of “aggressively selling assets”. How long until we only have youth players left? Bruno does not seem happy.

Spoiler

Austerity Measures: 

Asset Stripping:

 
Immediate Impact:
We have no money. Worse, we must immediately cut wages by 20%. Bet we can’t quickly get rid of Ronaldo *sigh*

Spoiler

Man Utd are officially insolvent!

With no transfer budget + a 20% cut to wages. Ouch.

 
This Career:
Join us - as we explore the unknown! Once all the stars + wonderkids have been sold off by the Chairman, how will Man Utd perform? Could they … *gasp* sell Old Trafford?! How bad will it get … ?!

Some notes on what I’m doing / extra restrictions:

Spoiler

AUSTERITY:

• We MUST be within the reduced wage budget from when the summer window shuts to the league season’s end.

ASSET STRIPPING:

• We MUST accept all transfer bids for any player. No negotiation!
• If the Chairman transfer lists a player, that player STAYS transfer listed until they are sold.
• If the Chairman transfer lists a player, then all transfer listed players MUST be ‘offered out’ for their current value (or less) - to generate interest.

OTHER:
To keep the spirit of this career authentic:

• NO incoming transfers, loans nor frees at all.
• NO offering contracts to greyed out players (only Man Utd youth intake players can be signed). 

Also I’ve switched on “budgets in the first window - so hopefully other teams have budgets to sign my players - so Man Utd loses its best players quicker!

Question - how bad can Man Utd get?! 😵 
 

Edited June 8, 2022 by DanEnglish

[DanEnglish]

Career Status:

Preseason 1:

• No investment … at all ?!
• ’Austerity’ + cutting wages
• ’Asset Stripping’ + losing stars
• Turning up for training 😵

Season 1 (First Half):

• Media statements + have I been fired?
• Is this ‘Morale Manager 2022’?!
• (Mediocre?) Reinforcements
• The First Half Season
• Vibe Record Store <top of forum thread page 2>

Season 1 (Second Half):

• The Worst Day of our Season
• The January Transfer Window
• Sliding Down the Table
• Hope - a Champions League special
• A Disappointing Finish

Preseason 2:

• How could YOU do better?
• More Transfers Out?!
• Phil Jones: Last Man Standing
• The Poll + YOUR Expectations
• The Start of a New Season
• It Gets Worse: In THREE Ways

Season 2 (First Half):

• New Owners? Are We SAVED?!
• < next update > 

Edited July 6, 2022 by DanEnglish

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

“Er … No Investment … At All?!”

We got two (edit: three!) surprises this morning. 

The first? Every one of our Board requests were rejected. Huh. Not a surprise, but they won’t even allow an affiliate … wow. That’s going to make loaning out youth a tad harder.

Spoiler

Three examples of rejected Board Requests:

 
The second surprise was more … er … surprising. We can’t improve our Staff at all? Nothing?! No exams + no firing (which means no hiring neither). Oh dear.

Spoiler

This looks good …

… but try to improve it …

Can’t even afford 10k compensation?!

 
Thirdly, Man Utd have some player contracts expiring at the end of the season which I’d like to renew (inc. Pogba + Lingard) … BUT the administrators will only allow a max £25k/week wage … AAARRGH! Will we lose Pogba on a free - just like real life?!

Spoiler

 
Next:
Lets look at Man Utd’s massive player wages + cut 20% immediately. Spoiler - it’s harder than you think!

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by DanEnglish

[Meow]

1 hour ago, DanEnglish said:

Not a surprise, but they won’t even allow an affiliate … wow. That’s going to make loaning out youth a tad harder.

At the rate of only selling and no incoming transfers, you'll probably run out of players to play let alone loan out.

Youth Academy graduates are good, but sometimes less than 5 come through. 

[hhooo]

Loan your kids to the first team.

I'm interested in doing the same with Arsenal and Chelsea

[DanEnglish]

Spoiler. This could be VERY bad …

Spoiler

Could Captain + star player Bruno Fernandes imminently leave the club?! 😵

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Pre-Season 1:
Austerity + A Strategic Error

After turning on the austerity measures ‘narrative’, we have to cut Man Utd’s wages by 20% (~£870k/week). We can round that up to a £1m/week cut - as I want to recall Martial back from loan.

Current State:
With a massive 18 (!!!) players on +£100k/week, surely it should be easy to find some “excess waste” … ?  

Spoiler

Where would YOU save ~£1m/week in wages … ?

On almost £500k/week, Ronaldo is our highest earner. BUT no-one will want to buy/loan him, and releasing Ronaldo would cost almost £50m (!).

 
Future State:
Keeping Ronaldo in our plans, elsewhere we cut almost 900k from wages - through a mix of player sales + loans out (where the other club pays our player’s wages!) 

Spoiler

Here’s our list of “excess waste” - selling / loaning out 6-7 of these 8 players would save us ~£800k-900k of wages.

Loaning out GK Henderson saves us £120k wages + develops him through first team football. We also loaned out midfielders Matic + Mata, but I’d rather have sold them.

To both raise funds + cut wages, we also managed to sell some players.

Veteran striker Cavani was on 250k / week, we’re lucky to have got a £1m fee! Backup GK Grant was sold, saving just £30k / week.

Worried that we hadn’t brought in any bigger transfer fees - I agreed to sell defenders Bailly + Lindelof for £20m total - the latter was on £140k / week!

Will that be enough for our Board?!

Strategic Error:
It was only afterwards that I’d realized my error. I’d SOLD both backup CBs. If Maquire or Varane get injured/sold, then Phil Jones is my only backup. 

Instead of selling them, in hindsight, I should have loaned out one of Bailly or Lindelof, so they could be recalled if needed. Ooops. How damaging will this error be?! 

Also, we’ve successfully cut ~20% from our wage bill, BUT we have no available wage budget to recall Martial from loan. After selling Cavani, this means we may be relying on only Ronaldo (36 years old?) to play the lone striker role every game. Not good. 
 

Next:
With our preseason plan complete - surely nothing can go wrong now - right? … Right?! … oh … 😞 … does any of this change YOUR predictions on how bad Man Utd could be?!

Edited June 9, 2022 by DanEnglish

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Pre-Season 1:
Asset Stripping … ?!

After also turning on the ‘asset stripping’ narrative - our administrators put star players on the transfer list …

Then - cruelly - after the season started and we’d sold / loaned out players to drop wages - this happened …

 
Star Player 1:
It started off with just “rumored interest”…

Spoiler

… while he almost went to Rivaks Liverpool, in the end Juve / Zebra paid £75m for our Captain Bruno 

Some players think this was a mistake or are disappointed with the sake. Me too guys, me too.

 

 
Star Player 2:
Yes - a second star player received a bid …

Spoiler

This was terrible news. Rashford is my best striker long term. Plus it’s strengthened Arsenal. Ouch.

 
Star Player 3:
The golden trio. The three musketeers. The four (er … three) horsemen of the apocalypse. Bye bye player #3 …

Spoiler

Pogba. To Man City. For a bargain £48m. Ouch.

More disappointment from the squad? Yes - me too. 
 

 
Summary:
Before the transfer window shuts, we have lost THREE of our best players. If you played this save, you could reject one or two bids, but after the Board may decide for you.

In this save, we must accept every bid.  
Bye bye Bruno, Pogba and Rashford 😞 

(this save just got MUCH harder)

Edited June 9, 2022 by DanEnglish

[StuartM]

I'm liking the challenge element here Dan, mwahaha!

Good luck though, I'm still expecting some big returns if they keep faith... who will be your "Mark Robins" to step up at the key moment?

[Meow]

Bruno, Pogba and Rashford are really big players to lose. The morale loss will probably be a harder hit than the players itself.

A (FM version of) Man U without these players will probably still handily finish top 4, the challenge is dealing with an absolutely ruined dressing room.

Good luck mate!

 

[DanEnglish]

On 08/06/2022 at 09:51, Meow said:

At the rate of only selling and no incoming transfers, you'll probably run out of players to play let alone loan out. Youth Academy graduates are good, but sometimes less than 5 come through. 

Hi @Meow - you are right - I "think" we should be ok for 3 seasons, but we will play greyed out players if needed! Also If I can keep a 'strategic amount' of players out on loan each season, they I doubt they can be sold (Mwhaha!).
 

On 08/06/2022 at 10:00, hhooo said:

Loan your kids to the first team. I'm interested in doing the same with Arsenal and Chelsea

Can I ask you @hhooo - what do you mean about loaning kids to the first team? I didn't understand that - do you mean recalling the Man Utd kids who are out on loan, or something else? Also, good luck if you do this with another club! Please share your experiences and tips if you do!
 

55 minutes ago, Meow said:

Bruno, Pogba and Rashford are really big players to lose. The morale loss will probably be a harder hit than the players itself. A (FM version of) Man U without these players will probably still handily finish top 4, the challenge is dealing with an absolutely ruined dressing room. Good luck mate!

You are unbelievably right. Bruno single-handedly changes games on his own - to lose him is my biggest loss. All three is even worse. I will do a 'morale-manager' special post later on, as the morale hit of the Board continually transfer listing players, and then selling our stars - gives a massive hit to almost the entire squad's morale. It really affects performances on the pitch as well.

1 hour ago, StuartM said:

I'm liking the challenge element here Dan, mwahaha! Good luck though, I'm still expecting some big returns if they keep faith... who will be your "Mark Robins" to step up at the key moment?

 "IF" they keep the faith? I think you may be right about that @StuartM. Who will be my Mark Robbins? Probably no-one, as they'd have been sold by that point 🤣

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Pre-Season 1:
Turning Up for Training

Great news - we have successfully cut wages and raised +£180m with (reluctant) player sales! Surely the administrators must be delighted 😀 

Er … sorry, can you repeat that …

Spoiler

They’ve sold our training ground?!?!

This was so unacceptable (and I wanted to see what would happen) - that I publicly complained via the media. Finally - fans are pleased with me. 

The Board however - they were NOT pleased with me at all. Ooops.
 

Bye bye Carrington training ground. Terrible news.

How much worse can it get … ?!

Edited June 10, 2022 by DanEnglish

[Meow]

31 minutes ago, DanEnglish said:

I like how it becomes half a star. I bet most of the players have personal gyms with at least a 3 star rating 😂

That said though, that's horrid for any young players you can get through to replace the leaving stars. Can't wait to see how the season goes!

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Season 1:
Media Statements
+ have I been fired?!

The season has started … We had already sold players to cut the wage bill. Then we lost three star players. Then our training ground was sold *sigh*

Surely now we can move forward - be positive, one team, one club, one family, now we … oh … oh dear …

Spoiler

SIX rounds of the Chairman / Board transfer listing players - three to four players each time 😵   

1. June 19th - PUBLICLY protest (inc. Bruno, Rashford, Pogba).
2. August 3rd - privately protest
3. August 7th - accept decision
4. August 17th - PUBLICLY protest
5. August 22nd - privately protest
6. end August - accept decision

 
Response A = Publicly protest
This angers / infuriates the Board.

Spoiler

This was the first round - transfer listing Bruno, Pogba + Rashford.

Fans loved my public attack! 🙂 

The Board were … disappointed … with my … insubordination! 
 

 
Response B: Privately protest

Spoiler

In round 2 - they transfer listed Vice-Captain Maquire, first choice defender Shaw, and backup attacker Elanga.

The Board were not happy with my private protest.

Plus the fans were “outraged” by my silence! This is the worst option - as upsets ALL parties!
 

 
Response C: Accept decision

Spoiler

The Board’s third round - where De Gea, Lingard, Fred, and backup midfielder Hannibal were all transfer listed.

Fans were not happy at my silence. 
 

The Board got more - threatening - with my continued public and private protests …

… this was the Board’s final statement …

Can you imagine the fear of what happens when you hit that next ‘continue’ button … is this over …

… am I fired ?! 😵

Edited June 10, 2022 by DanEnglish

[DanEnglish]

Answer:

Spoiler

Not fired 🙂 yet!

 

[hhooo]

Sounds like you should have just continued public protesting and inspired a violent overthrow of the board

[Cziffra]

2 hours ago, hhooo said:

Sounds like you should have just continued public protesting and inspired a violent overthrow of the board

that would have been interesting, but I am not sure if there is anything in the game's mechanics to allow the board to be overthrown.

[eternalaurora]

On 09/06/2022 at 00:36, DanEnglish said:

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Summary:
Before the transfer window shuts, we have lost THREE of our best players. If you played this save, you could reject one or two bids, but after the Board may decide for you.

In this save, we must accept every bid.  
Bye bye Bruno, Pogba and Rashford 😞 

(this save just got MUCH harder)

Hurts a lot in FMM, but IRL the fans would probably be thrilled to see it happen.😂

Worry not! You still have CR7 and... Anthony Elanga? There's Sancho and Lingard for the flanks. Dalot can also play as RM if needed. Shoretire might be able to become a solid backup... if you manage to survive until February. For CB you also have McTominay. I know he only has 11 positioning, but so is Nico Schlotterbeck and he's Bundesliga's best CB this season!

Edited June 11, 2022 by eternalaurora

[DanEnglish]

10 hours ago, eternalaurora said:

Worry not! You still have CR7 and... Anthony Elanga?

Haha 😂 you are 100% right! In the AF position, I have a deteriorating Ronaldo, with young speedster Elanga as backup (two completely different styles of striker).

Then in the left sided IF position, I have Martial, with Lingard as a reluctant backup. Not ideal.

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Season 1:
Is this ‘Morale Manager 2022’?! 

I’ve seen the FM series be nicknamed “Morale Manager” - due to the (reportedly) strong effect Morale had on performances in the game. So let’s see what happens! 
 

The good news:
 Man United start off with decent morale! 

Spoiler

Decent morale in the first team - 4 bright greens, 4 light greens, 2 yellows.

Plus a “C” for morale in the squad dynamics, which has no influence on the squad …

… oh how this changes … 

 

 
The bad news:
as soon as you switch on the ‘austerity’ + ‘asset stripping’ narratives, player morale drops dramatically 😞 

Spoiler

Now it’s 6 reds (!), 2 yellows and surprisingly 2 greens! Yes I love you too Wan-Bissaja + McTominay ♥️ 

Plus look at how morales “C” rating drops to an “F” (!!!) - with a new negative effect on the squad dynamics🔻

As a guess - perhaps “loyalty” would also drop, but Man United had this at rock-bottom already! 
 

 
The EVEN WORSE news:
even after winning games (which boosts morale) - inc. 6 of the 7 pre-season friendlies - the Chairperson transfer listing players + selling the training ground continually drops player morale 😭 

Spoiler

September 1st - after SIX rounds of transfer listing players, the window ends.

Squad morale is extremely low - 7 reds - and you can see star GK De Gea’s morale detail below 😞 

 
 

 
Next   
After a great preseason, we have had poor results from our first 3 league games.

With the transfer window shut, hopefully the Chairperson will STOP transfer listing players. If so, can we start to re-build morale + performances … ?!

… (at least until the winter transfer window opens 😞 ) …

Edited June 12, 2022 by DanEnglish

[eternalaurora]

Loyalty will go up eventually, if you manage to survive 3 seasons. The thing is United bought 3 ambitious big names this season, and it takes a while for ambitious player to settle down and develop affinity with the club. In addition, you'll probably need to get rid of Hannibal.

Haven't figured out morale yet, but United already have a bunch of players having negative influence on morale. Players being unhappy about something will affect morale negatively.

[DanEnglish]

44 minutes ago, eternalaurora said:

Players being unhappy about something will affect morale negatively.

… and we have A LOT of things our players can be unhappy about …

Spoiler

• club is bankrupt / financial difficulties
• club has no training ground
• player is transfer listed
• player’s team mate is transfer listed
• team’s star player was sold
• etc 😞 

[Meow]

5 hours ago, DanEnglish said:

I'm interested in what Martial is so pumped about. Rashford getting sold so he gets more first team opportunities?

[DanEnglish]

1 hour ago, Meow said:

I'm interested in what Martial is so pumped about. Rashford getting sold so he gets more first team opportunities?

That’s a great question. Thankfully I still have a save from that date (Sep 1st)!

Martial:
Was recalled from loan the day below (last day of the window) - so he’s one of the few that is NOT transfer listed by the Board!

Spoiler

Here’s the detail behind his morale:

Plus he’s in the French national squad - who are a pretty happy bunch. Not sure if that impacts things.

Rest of the Squad:
It’s amazing how many of the squad are transfer listed by the Board (more than half) - so for most of them, their morale dropped massively…

Spoiler

 

6 of the first team remain transfer listed (after selling three) - plus 7 of our backup team were transfer listed. That’s 13 of a 20 man squad!

    

You can see they are a pretty unhappy bunch 😞   

Edited June 12, 2022 by DanEnglish

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Season 1:
(Mediocre?) Reinforcements

Congratulations! We have passed September 1st, the transfer window is closed + surely the Board can’t beat us up again … right?! 
 

Recalled Players:
After losing Bruno, Pogba + Rashford, alongside selling/loaning out multiple squad players - we’ve had to recall some loaned out players!

Spoiler

Welcome back striker Martial and attacking midfielders van de Beek, Chong + Pereira!

They are not as good as the three outgoing stars - but hopefully they’ll be .. er … good enough … ?

Thankfully even after recalling them, we continue to be within our reduced wage budget 👍  
 

Our Squad:
On our new (half star) training pitch, this is the squad we are using …

Spoiler

In our favoured 4231 (this will change in future!) - THREE of our recalled players go straight into the first team.

I really wish we loaned out either Bailly or Lindelof - so we could recall them as a backup DC - a "strategic error" indeed.

With the sale of Bruno + co., this is the updated squad hierarchy:

Spoiler - interestingly, within a few months, unhappy De Gea promotes himself all the way from the bottom to become one of the three key team leaders - alongside lazy Ronaldo + limited McTominay. 
 

 
Next
With these (mediocre?) reinforcements + (demoralized!) squad - how are the Board feeling about my management … ?

Huh. Not ideal.

Let’s hope we can rebuild morale + results in the next few months ahead. Otherwise this could be a short career! 😉 
 

Edited June 13, 2022 by DanEnglish
Added squad image into spoiler

[DanEnglish]

Spoiler - at least our players love me - right?!

Spoiler

Player Mutiny?! 

Oh no!

 
 

How much worse can this first half-season get?!

[StuartM]

It will just make victory taste sweeter Dan!

[DanEnglish]

14 hours ago, StuartM said:

It will just make victory taste sweeter Dan!

Victory? VICTORY?! Hahahaha …

… I think it’s more of a choice between moderate failure (surviving three years by the skin of my teeth) vs epic failure (who knows how bad it can get).

What you’ve seen so far … it gets worse!

[DanEnglish]

How bad can Man Utd get? 

Season 1:
The First Half Season

I’ll be honest. We have been struggling. Without Bruno + co, our demoralized squad had a poor start - 8th place after six games. The media are not happy with me.

Thankfully we climbed up a little into 6th place after ten games - but that is still very poor. 

We also had a poor start in Europe. To qualify for the knockouts, we need two wins + results elsewhere to go our way. Otherwise it’s the Euro Cup 😵

 
Jan 1st.  
We haven’t been fired (yet!). 

Spoiler

3rd place in the league. Phew!

You can see we are not challenging for the title - as are 5 to 7 points behind the top two. But we have improved a lot.

Qualified for ECL knockouts!

We did not deserve to qualify. That final 1-0 away win over 3rd placed Leipzig was lucky lucky lucky. Jose Mourinho would have been proud.  
 

Form vs Morale
Morale really does have a big impact on team / player performance… thankfully both improved a lot …

Spoiler

We struggled in August + September, with terribly poor team morale. Plus we kept struggling against opposition back three formations (e.g. 5221).

After an “all-out-defend” goalless draw away to Man City, in October we started to pick up form - though it was still inconsistent…

… then in end-Nov and December, we went on a (14 game?) unbeaten run 🔥 🔥 🔥 with no extra players being transfer listed - morale was sky high 😎

You will notice (1) we struggle to score, and (2) Spurs’ ended our unbeaten run just before the new year.  
 

 
Player Stats
Feel free to skip this section, but here’s the player stats up to Jan 1st.

Spoiler

Ronaldo and Martial are my top scorers so far (11 + 7 respectively)

Recalled from loan, central midfielder Pereira has the most assists (7), but mainly because he takes most of our wide set pieces. Recalled Van de Beek has also done well in the AMC/AP role.

Average ratings are pretty low 😞 
 

Next
Everything is great. Morale is high, results are good - nothing can go wrong. 

Right … ? … oh …

Spoiler

What?!

You have got to be joking - squad morale drops dramatically. Twice?! Red morale everywhere🔻

 

 
AAAARRRGH!!!  😵

Edited June 16, 2022 by DanEnglish

[Meow]

2 hours ago, DanEnglish said:

nothing can go wrong. 

Right … ? … oh …

I thought it'd be the January transfer window, but it is worse because now you have 1 well 2 more crisis before that inevitable one.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Meow